


All Bets Off

by cherryjamontoast



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23802964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryjamontoast/pseuds/cherryjamontoast
Summary: Written for Reddit Dragon Age prompt challenge: "Do you think I wanted this? Any of this?" Bann Lawrence Trevelyan realizes just how deep his youngest daughter is in the Inquisition.
Kudos: 4





	All Bets Off

Prompt: Do you think I wanted this? Any of this?  
At the sound of her name, Bann Lawrence Trevelyan’s daughter jumped nearly out of her skin. She whirled around to face her father, a red scrap of fabric in her hand. He set down his tea cup as he regarded his youngest critically.   
She looked guilty, for some reason, like the time he caught her attempting to scale the trellis back to her room with mussed hair and clothes. Of course, this wasn’t a simple matter of her dallying around with boys.   
“Papa,” She breathed panicked, looking like the cat mid canary swallow.  
Before either of them could say anything, three others joined Asterin. It was an odd bunch, in Lawrence’s estimation: a beardless dwarf with an obscene amount of chest hair, an elf with not a stitch of hair on his head and a qunari with pants so large they looked like they were stolen right off of the circus tent.   
Maker, who was his daughter?!  
Still, he remained calm, despite his youngest child traipsing around Val Royeaux with what was sure to be a set up of a joke. He could barely register her making introductions.   
“… and this is my father.” Asterin finished. The egg headed elf bent his head in greeting but Lawrence ignored the greeting.   
Asterin, in turn, held up one finger to indicate that he should wait…like a child, and turned to her companions. Completely ignoring him. Him! Her father! The man who raised her- who gave her life! She spoke quietly with her companions of another mark and an assassination attempt. Maker! He didn’t even know his child anymore.   
He watched, not paying much mind to the conversation at hand. He had heard that she had joined that upstart Inquisition but this?! What kind of company did his daughter keep? Unbidden, the old fear began to creep back into his consciousness. Asterin’s eyes were blue…so blue…so unlike the brown eyes everyone else in the family possessed. Blue like that templar’s…  
No. He pushed the thought out of his mind. Asterin was his, regardless of who sired her. Did that Templar hold her hands as she learned to walk? Did he spend hours trying to get her Ostwick accent out of her Teviene? Did Ser Remy teach her how to read? Write? Lawrence put the rumors of Asterin’s parentage out of his mind. Regardless of his late wife’s fidelity, Asterin was his daughter.   
A daughter who seemed like a complete stranger in this Orlesian café.  
“Tell me, Asterin,” He found himself asking, “Did you lose some kind of bet?” Lawrence asked, absolutely baffled at the scene that was unfolding.   
The qunari and the dwarf found this line of questioning absolutely hilarious.   
Asterin gave a frustrated sigh and put a gloved hand to her forehead as if she had a terribly long day. “No, Papa, I didn’t lose a bet. These are my associates. It was good to see you, Papa, but we need to go.”  
She moved to walk past him, like he was just some nobody whom she barely met and could only give the barest pleasantries before loosing all tolerance. Lawrence grabbed for her hand and called, “Don’t think we are done with this, young lady, we are not!”  
Suddenly, a green light shone from her glove and Asterin hissed in pain. Bann Lawrence let go of her wrist as if it were on fire. Might as well should have been, given the light that shone through the leather glove. The elf moved forward, looking like Asterin was a fascinating experiment to study.   
“The mark, does it bother you?” The elf asked.   
Asterin shook her hand as if waving it in the air would keep the pain at bay. When did Asterin wear gloves? She detested gloves- couldn’t even be bribed to wear them! He had tried. Anything to get her sisters and stepmother to stop fussing over decorum. She had defiantly ripped off the little yellow gloves the Teyrna had decreed every young lady should wear at her coming out and had thrown them over the wall into the sea.   
“It just stings, is all.” She responded, as resolute and strong as ever.   
“Daughter of mine, we need to have a conference in private.” Lawrence announced, slowly and purposely formal, determined to get to the bottom of this…brewhaha.  
At least she recognized his urgency and authority that he was hiding in his formality. Asterin was always very intelligent…no matter how wild she was.   
“Go on ahead of me and look for the final clue to this Red Jenny. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” Asterin relented.  
The dwarf seemed amused by this turn of events and before they left turned and said to Bann Trevelyan, “Go easy on her, Messere. The Inquisition can’t close that hole in the sky if you ground the Herald of Andraste.” The dwarf gestured to Asterin with a smirk and turned on his heel to leave.  
“The Herald of Andraste?!” Lawrence repeated, utterly aghast and taken aback.   
His mind spinning at this revelation, Lawrence took his youngest by the other hand and led her back to the estate he used when he was lecturing at the University in the capitol. It was a nice, if not small dwelling that he had begun sharing with his eldest, Madrigal after her husband left her. His wife had said that it was the height of scandal, but Lawrence didn’t mind. Madge was calm, logical and a welcome reprieve from his wife and middle daughter’s prattling and Asterin’s rebellious nature.   
Madge had gotten a position- thanks to him- at the University studying and lecturing on mineral deposits. If Asterin was like her mother in every way, then Madge was the spitting image of him. He could even go as far to say that she looked like a mirror image of him in a wig, but he supposed that that was an untoward thing for a man to say about his child- even if he considered it to be a compliment. Madge was always more studious than her sisters. Unlike his youngest who had felt the need to cause trouble since before she could walk.   
Herald of Andraste? Herald of Andraste?!  
“Herald of Andraste?!” Bann Lawrence shouted once they got into the foyer and he had shut the door firmly behind him.  
“Well, anything you say fifty seven times is bound to be true.” Asterin shot back.   
“You’re exaggerating.”   
“No, I counted as you dragged me back to your house practically by my ear!”  
“I’m not surprised by this. Not one bit. I knew you were rebellious enough to go join a heretical group that may or may not have had a hand at killing Divine Justinia but to find out you are their leader?! I thought you couldn’t surprise me any more than what you did before you began training with Ser Remy but this?! You have outdone yours-“  
“Papa, how are you taken aback by this?!” Asterin interrupted suddenly, “I addressed the Chantry in the square today. There were a bunch of Templars; they abandoned the Chantry and the city and retreated back to Therinfall. A revered mother got sucker punched in front of half the city! Your window overlooks the square where it happened!! How did you miss this?!”   
“That didn’t happen.” He waved his finger as if to ward off the truth. “That did not happen! I would have heard it if it did.”  
Asterin let out an exasperated noise and began pacing. She always had a flare for the dramatic.   
Bann Lawrence heard footsteps from within. Madge! Blessed Madge! Calm, serious, Madge! She would bring some sense to this upside down, topsy turvy world where Asterin hunted red scarves and claimed to be the mouthpiece of Andraste. Was he allowed to have a favorite daughter? Nevermind. Madge was definitely his favorite.  
Madge entered the foyer, as calm and as welcome a sight that had ever been. She embraced Asterin who was being more of a sore thumb than a daughter.   
“Asterin, I see your time in Starkhaven has served your public speaking well. What can we do for the Herald of Andraste?”  
Bann Trevelyan turned on his eldest as if he had just been told that the world was going to be operating opposite to what it had from now on. “You knew?!”  
Madge shrugged nonchalantly. “Of course I did. She addressed the Chantry about it in the Square. The Inquisition’s ambassador sent word weeks ago.”  
“That didn’t happen.” Maker! How did he get into this topsy turvy world? “That did not happen!”  
“I put it on your desk in the study.” Madge responded evenly in her deep, almost masculine voice.   
“And there it shall stay in a cacophony of papers!” His world was unraveling and in that moment, he didn’t care if he was using the word cacophony wrong. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before I made a fool of myself?”  
“I did.”  
“No you didn’t!” The absurdity of the situation was making his voice sound shrill and unhinged. Now they were ganging up on him! To the Void with daughters! He renounced Madrigal ever being his favorite- Rentata! Yes! Had Renata done anything to vex him lately? No, his middle child was safely in Ostwick, with her husband and many, many children. Yes, Renata was his favorite now. 

“Several weeks ago I said to you- and I quote- ‘Papa, the Inquisition has sent a letter regarding Asterin’s role in it. I think you should read it yourself. It’s on your desk in your library. I got to go; I’m bringing back some dwarven colleagues for dinner. We are having roast nug.’ And you said, ‘I don’t like roast nug.”  
“I don’t dislike roast nug.”   
“You said that they are too gamey and their feet having tiny fingers on them unnerves you.”  
Asterin spoke up as she casually leaned against the wall. “Does this mean you’re done yelling at me and I can get on with my mission?”  
“We aren’t done yet, missy!” Lawrence called over his shoulder as he stormed into the estate. He marched into his study to find proof of his children’s lunacy. Of course, his daughters followed him like ducklings. He did have to admit, though that Madge was right about one thing: the little fingers on nugs made him think of baby fingers. He let his children know so in that moment.   
“Papa, I really do have to go. We’re getting fed information in the worst possible way to try and find someone who is actively planning to work against the Inquisition and kill me. To kill me, Papa.” Asterin went on, trying to be heard over his conversation with Madrigal.   
He rifled through his papers, to no avail and that brought the conversation into a debate. Of course Madge didn’t give him any of this information. He couldn’t find a single thing on his desk. He wished he had kept his girls at the door to his study as Madge lectured him on being more attentive to what people were saying…or something to that effect and Asterin tried over and over to get his attention. This was why he had taken up the town house in Val Royeaux. It was a refuge from the non-stop chatter of his daughters.  
“Papa!” Asterin shouted in frustration, breaking his concentration. She had ripped off her glove and had shoved her hand in his face.   
Bann Lawrence forced himself to look at the mark. It bathed the room in the same eerie green light that he saw in the café. Except this time, he couldn’t ignore it. It ran the length of Asterin’s palm, a miniature twin of the one dominating the sky. He had noticed when the breach appeared- oh, yes- and couldn’t deny the primal fear of that moment, no matter how he tried to rationalize the feeling away.   
He expected to see a sign of injury on her hand. A scrape or cut that he could put a poultice on and wrap up with a pink flowered bandage. Asterin had always insisted on a pattern- even on a bandage. He saw none of it. No angry welts, no sign of infection, just this…mark on her hand that made his tough girl hiss in pain and then try to cover it up.   
“Do you think I wanted this? Any of this? Do you know how many souls were eradicated in a single moment at the Convlave? Do you know that even now, people are looking at the tear in the sky with demons pouring out of it and deny its severity? Do you even have one iota of a clue of what I’ve been dealing with?!”  
His girl, his brave, head strong girl. Lawrence took her marked hand gingerly in his and couldn’t help but recall the defiant look on her face as those stupid yellow gloves fluttered down to the sea. Her laugh had rung out as he said to her that he thought they were as stupid as she did. Asterin was always the most like her mother. His first wife…  
“…and if I have to knock heads together to get some sense into the world then, damn it, that’s what I’ll do because nobody else is going to do it.” Asterin finished.  
“Well, my girl,” He said at last, “House Trevelyan will stand with your Inquisition.”


End file.
